Trim strip



Sept- 26, 1961 H. c. MATHER 3,001,246

TRIM STRIP Filed June 1l, 1958 A7' TORNEY United States Patent Otiice 3,001,246 Patented Sept. 26, 1961 3,091,246 TRIM STRIP Harold C. Mather, Gilbert Park, lll., assigner to Midwest Manufacturing Corporation, Galesburg, Ill.

Filed .lune 11, 1958, Ser. No. 741,395 2 Claims. (Cl. 2035) This invention relates to a novel trim strip in combination with a door, and to means for securing the strip to said door.

More specifically, the invention comprehends provision of an ornamental covering for the edge portions of a door such as used on domestic refrigerator cabinets `having walls of sheet metal. For the ornamental covering, a so-called trim strip, of U-shaped cross-section, is provided. It is formed from substantially resilient metallic sheet material having attaching members at its free ,edges for coupled engagement with anchor members on inner and outer walls of the door. The central portion of the trim strip is initially bowed inward, cross-sectionally, between arm portions thereof. When the trimstrip is attached to the door, its central portion is greatly flattened owing to its deflection, Within its `elastic; limits, by being pressed against the edge wall of the door to initiate cooperation between the attaching and anchor members and for said members to be then biased into attached relation to each other by said central portion when deilecting pressure thereon is relieved.

Although ornamental trim strips have been used on metallic cabinet doors for a long time to improve the appearance of the doors, the means by which the strips were attached to the doors involved third members such as screws, bolts, or other fastener devices to secure the strips to the doors. Use of the third members involved too slow and expensive a means of manufacture for mass production, especially in View of the prevailing trend in cabinet design for the doors of domestic refrigerators. Furthermore, thickness of the sheet -metal from which trim strips are ordinarily formed is very thin and therefore subject to irregularities in formation when attached to doors by the older and conventional means referred to.

The present invention affords means for quickly attaching metallic moulding or trim 'strips to cabinets, having metal walls, without the aid of separate attaching members such as bolts, screws or other attaching devices. Further, the uniformity of appearance of the strips is not marred by the new means for securing them tothe doors.

One object of the invention is therefore to add to the appearance of a door having a plain surface by attaching a substantially resilient, metallic trim strip to its edge portions for accentuating a panel within the area defined by said strip.

Another object of the invention is to provide improved means for quickly attaching the trim Strip to the door Without the aid of third members for securing the strips to the doors.

Still another object is to so attach a trim strip to the edges of a door that the exposed edges of the strip, when attached, are uniform in appearance even though the strips are formed from very thin sheet metal.

Other advantages of the invention will be set forth in part hereinafter and in part will be obvious herefrom, or may be learned by practice with the invention, the same being realized and attained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations pointed out in the appended claims.

In the drawings:

FIG. l is a front perspective view of a refrigerator in conjunction with which the invention is incorporated;

FIG. 2 is a horizontal section taken on line 2-2 of PIG. 1 and drawn to an enlarged scale;

FIG. 3 is a fragmentary section of the parts Lshown in FIG. 2 before they are locked together; and

FIG. 4 is a fragmentary elevational view of the front wall of the refrigerator door and trim strip in assembled relation to each other, a portion ofthe latter being broken away.

Also in the drawings, the reference character 6 is used to denote a domestic refrigerator cabinet having, among other elements, a top wall 7 and side walls 8. To one of the walls 8 a door 9 is hinged and arranged to be opened and closed by a door handle 11 on the door. The door 9 is of box-like formation since it comprises a rigid shell 12 preferably of some suitable sheet metal formed with an inner wall 13 and outer wall 14 extending from the edges of an endless edge wall 16. From the latter wall, the wall 13 extends past the edge portion of a plastic panel 17, FIG. 2, secured to the wall 13 by means not shown. The edges of the panel 17 are embraced by a rubber gasket 18 deriving support from the panel as well as the wall 12. The `gasket 18 includes a .ridge portion 19 for engagement with the cabinet proper and to be thereby reflected when the door is closed to resist interchange of room air with the cooled `air within the cabinet. Between the walls 13 and 14 is contained some suitable thermally non-conductive material 21, such as glass wool.

In association with the edge portions of the door 9 is a trim strip 22 of U-shaped cross-section. It is of `resilient sheet metal formed to provide a rectangular `portion or back 23. Longitudinally, the back 23 is edged by an inner flange 24 and an outer lflange 26. Throughout its length, the `free edge of the flange 24 is bent to slant inward toward the back 23. This provides a hook portion 27 Vand cam 28. The outer flange 26 is formed with a hook portion 29, throughout its length, corresponding to the `hook portion 27. Both of the hook portions 27 and 29 are arranged to slide frictionally over the walls 13 and 14 and into engagement with outwardly distended `anchor hook or wedge shaped portions 31 formed from the walls 13 and 14 in rows adjacent the edge wall 16. The anchor portions 31 slant outward away from the wall 1 6 and consequently ,cooperate with the hooks 27 and 28 to cam them away from each other as the flanges 24 and `26 are forcibly slid over the walls 13 and 14.

A novel feature is provided -for retaining the trim strip in permanent assembly with the door 9. Before indicating what this feature is, it should be noted that moving the flanges of the trim strip over the edge of the door 9 until the back 23, in its relaxed status, engages the end wall 16 is insuiiicient to hook the hooks 27 and 29 onto the anchor portions 31, although this movement of the trim strip is adequate to carry the hooks 27 and 29 into g engagement with the anchor portions 31. This is because the back is bowed inwardly between the flanges 24 and 26 throughout its length and only a longitudinal or ridge portion of the back engages the edge wall 16. At this point, it should be remembered that the trim strip 22 is substantially resilient. Therefore, the back 23 partakes of the nature of a leaf spring transversely thereof. Accordingly, the ilanges 24 and 26 may be moved additionally over the walls 13 and 14 by applying additional pressure to the trim strip to deflect its back 23, within its elastic limits, suciently to carry the tips of the hooks 27 and 29 slightly past the tips of the anchor portions 31. This, of course, first dellects the hooks away from each other additionally, owing to their cooperation with the anchor portions and then enables the hooks to snap toward each other after they have been carried beyond the tips of the anchor portions 31. In this process, the bowed status of the back 2,3 is greatly lessened or even flattened as it is indicated in FIG. 3. When pressure to perform the hooking operation has been removed, the hooked status precludes return of the back to its relaxed and bowed status. The hooks 27 and 29 then being biased into hooked relation to the anchor portions 31, retention of the trim strip on the door is assured.

The purposes of the trim :strip 22 is, of course, to provide embellishment for the door 9. And this is attained by accentuating a panel 32 on the wall 14 within the area defined by the flange 26. Therefore, a portion of the flange 26, throughout the length of its framework, is offset relative to the wall 14 and bent linearly at 33 to converge toward the panel 32.

If desired, the back 23 may be continuous about at least three of the walls 16 but formed with a separate pair of flanges to straddle each of the straight edges of the door with the exception of one of those edges of the door preferably at the bottom thereof. In its entirety, the trim strip 22 is therefore of inverted U-shape and prior to afflxing it to the door 9 arms 34 of the trim strip diverge, relative to each other from the ends of an intermediate section 36.

Preferably such a strip may be attached to the door Y as follows: The intermediate section 36 is brought down over the top of the door, the `arms 34 being inclined sufficiently relative to the walls 13 and 14 to enable the hook 27 to be hooked to the row of anchor portions 31 on one side of the door. Then the strip 22 is swung about the line of engagement between the hooks 27 and row of hooks 31 until the hook 29 engages the wall 14, the arms 34 meanwhile being swung nearer to a state of parallelism with the wall 12. From this relaxed position of the strip 22,7the same may be swung additionally only by applying considerable force to the back 23 to hook the hook 29 onto the hooks 31 `on the other side of the door, the hooking operation involving camming of the hook 29 away from the hook 27 by the members 31 and flattening of the bowed section of the back 23. The side arms 34 are then hooked to the vertical side walls of the door in av similar manner; that is, by progressively downwardly hooking the flanges to the nearest side of the door as the arms are swung inward to nearparallelism with the vertical edge walls and then forcing the remaining flanges into hooked cooperation with the remaining rows of flanges on the opposite side of the door.

While my invention has been described in an embodiment thereof, I am aware that numerous and extensive departures may be made therefrom without departing from the spirit and scope of the appended claims.

I claim:

1. In combination with a door having a front wall, a

rear wall, and a `side wall interconnecting outer marginal edges of said front and rear walls, wherein said front and rear Walls are each provided with latch receiving means adjacent said edges and disposed therealong; a channel-shaped trim strip therefor comprising a front flange, a rear flange, and a web portion interconnecting said front and rear flanges, each of said flanges being provided with latch means adapted to engage said latch receiving means; said trim strip having an unstressed preassembled position wherein said front flange loosely engages said front wall, said rear flange loosely engages said rear wall, and said web portion is inwardly bowed toward said side wall; said trim strip having a stressed assembled position wherein said latch means engage said latch receiving means, said web portion engages said side wall and is resiliently urged into planar configuration, and said flanges are resiliently urged toward convergence by said web portion.

2. In combination with a door having a front wall, a rear wall, a top wall, and two side walls, wherein said front and rear walls are each provided with latch receiving means disposed adjacent their peripheries; a channelshaped trim strip therefor comprising three longitudinally contiguous segments, each of said segments having a front flange, a rear flange, and a web portion interconnecting said front :and rear flanges, a first one of said segments engaging one of said side walls, a second one of said segments engaging said top wall, and a third one of said segments engaging the other of said side walls, each of said flanges being provided with latch means adapted to engage said latch receiving means; said trim strip having an unstressed preassembled position wherein each of said front flanges loosely engages said front wall, each of said rear flanges loosely engages said rear wall, and each of said web portions is inwardly bowed toward its respective one of said side and top walls; said trim strip having a stressed assembled position wherein said latch means engage said latch receiving rneans, each of said web portions engages its respective one of said side and top walls and is resiliently urged into planar configuration thereagainst, and each of said flangesV is resiliently urged inwardly by its respective web portion.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,277,319 Ioice Aug. 27, 1918 2,225,592 MacFadden Dec. 17, 1940 2,297,887 Hall et al. Oct. 6, 1942 2,720,683 Schwenker et al. Oct. 18, 1955 2,812,559 McCarran Nov. 12, 1957 2,837,787 Wright June 10, 1958 

